Prior to the research undertaken by the EXPLO project, knowledge of prehistoric lakeside settlements in the Balkans was fragmentary. Dendrochronological information was entirely absent. Likewise, palaeoecological and archaeobiological investigations were sparse. The EXPLO project therefore addressed a significant research gap by conducting interdisciplinary foundational studies in a region characterized by a substantial backlog in systematic investigation.
The analysis of palaeoecological sediment cores from lakes along a transect between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas has, for the first time, enabled an unprecedented continuous reconstruction of ecosystem dynamics for the period ca. 7500-3000 BC, with more general overviews encompassing the entire Holocene. These data provide a basis for assessing forest dynamics, the use of fire in landscape management and the agricultural expansion, as well as long-term climatic fluctuations. This palaeoscience effort allowed us to recognize that the introduction of farming ca. 8700-8500 years was more widespread than so far assumed, reaching sites far away from the Mediterranean coast, where climate was generally cooler and moister. The most important breakthrough of the palaeoecological analyses was, however, to disclose for the first time the strong, decadal-scale linkage between climate, ecosystem and land use. Indeed, when farming was introduced to Europe, pronounced climatic oscillations occurred, advantaging grasslands at the expenses of forests, creating environments similar to those in Anatolia and more widely western Asia, where agriculture first emerged. Several studies on land use, conducted jointly by palaeoecological and archaeological researchers within the EXPLO project, provide for the first time a holistic reconstruction of land-use dynamics in southern Europe.
Advances in the EXPLO project have combined radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology to establish the first highly precise chronological framework for Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age sites across the wider Mediterranean region. Key sites include Lin 3, Sovjan, and Dunavec (Albania; Lake Ohrid and the Korça Basin), Dispilio (Greece; Lake Orestiada/Kastoria), and Ploča-Michovgrad, Ohrid, Penelopa, and Vbrnik (North Macedonia; Lake Ohrid). The resulting dendrochronological curves span the periods 6400–3900 BCE and 2400–1200 BCE. A notable outcome was the identification of a solar-driven cosmic ray event which caused a sharp increase in atmospheric concentrations of cosmogenic isotopes in 5259 BCE. Using the 303-year-long high-precision chronology from Dispilio, ending in 5140 BCE, this event was applied for absolute dating. Dispilio thus becomes the first prehistoric site worldwide to be dated dendrochronologically with annual precision. The EXPLO project is now (2025) poised to apply the same methodology to the Iron Age site of Vbrnik (Lake Ohrid) using the Miyake event of 664/663 BCE. These dendrochronological results are groundbreaking.
At Dispilio, the ceramic assemblage, macrolithic artifacts, chipped stones, and bone tools is categorized and documented by site phases, with advanced analysis of an astonishing and unique assemblage of over 1500 vessels.
The archaeobiological dimension of EXPLO has been equally remarkable, shedding new light on the nature of early farming economies through the lens of superb organic recovery in intact cultural layers preserved under the waterlogged conditions of the lakeshore settlements. Thanks to these anaeorobic preservation conditions, we can appreciate for the first time the relation among cultivation, herding, foraging, hunting and fishing in the ecotonal settings of the lakeshores settled by early farmers. The overarching observation is that these were diverse land-use regimes that combined small-scale integrated cultivation and herding with the aquatic and terrestrial resources of the lakeshore, including abundant foraging of rosaceous shrubs along the woodland margins, hunting of the roe deer that invaded crop fields and multi-season fishing. These wild resources are normally under-represented in the dryland settings of most Neolithic settlements excavated to date in southeast Europe. Despite this resource diversity, our results also underline the centrality of early farming and especially crops as staple foods that were stored and consumed year-round.
